Radeon HD 6850 & 6870 reviews...

[Monstru]

When the memory frequency is 100MHz SDR higher and the fan's set to auto.

Memory overclocking is like... soo the next best thing after GPU.

And fan set to auto.....bro, you are a competitive overclocker, WTF!!!!

[duploxxx]

Free AA?

And the IQ is not that bad...



I like it.

by the time you want to look that in depth towards high res gaming in SC2 online you will already be dead

[EvilOne]

New graphics card which is slower than the old one

£200 for 6870
£270 for 5870
(Based on OCUK prices)

5870 is very slightly faster, but price diffrence is huge.

Cant wait to see the new performance 6970's which is the real sucessor to the 5870.

[Lokinhow]

by the time you want to look that in depth towards high res gaming in SC2 online you will already be dead

very true

but this is the only MLAA x MSAA x SSAA comparsion using a real game that I found

[Glow9]

Signs of NVIDIA's "loyalists" today:

a) The word "driver" is repeated at least 3 times in a short paragraph.
b) Citing unbelievable driver "headache" from all over the internet, but can never come up with a concrete example of the famous driver issue.

I posted 3 threads from the first page of the ATI forum with people have driver problems. But I don't think this was directed at me none the less your not reading through all the posts. The irony once again being nobody has come up with concrete examples that there isn't "famous driver issues". I hardly think our members our stupid despite suffering issues with their cards. Fanbois calling others fanbois really.... Goes on and on in here.

[trinibwoy]

From what I gather, they are raking in the money. The end of year figures includes a lot of clever accounting, write-offs and r&d figures.

The underlying business model is doign very well, and will continue to do very well.

AMDs GPU division doesn't get hit with GloFo charges. The numbers speak for themselves. Not sure what numbers you're using to conclude that they're raking in profits due to small dies.

[Shadov]

This has been the dullest GPU release ever
BOOOOOOORING AMD
New graphics card which is slower than the old one

Of course you missed the cheaper and improved part?

69xx will come soon for the geeky types without GF's. *j/k*

[Humminn55]

i know but stil BOOOORING

Gee, thanks for the insight. Now, if you're so bored with the gpu release, why are you posting or even reading about it? Must not be too boring, or are you just trolling for responses?

[Dimitriman]

AMDs GPU division doesn't get hit with GloFo charges. The numbers speak for themselves. Not sure what numbers you're using to conclude that they're raking in profits due to small dies.

easy just compare nvidias desktop division profits (excluding quadro) and compare to that of amd and you will see how well amds model is doing. all this ignoring the fact that amd is releasing new products at least 3 months faster than nvidia.

[Zloyd]

All I gotta say is Xfire scaling

sweet 6870 x2 is gonna be one heck of a 500$ setup !!

[snoid_zero]

NV needs to make a gaming line architecture and a CGPU architecture. The gaming line needs to have none of the GPU compute parts. NV needs to go back to the drawing board and remember what business it got into in the first place.

+1

totally agree
Maybe they are thinking about this right now.

[prava]

Just like microstutter was an issue a couple people brought up, then everyone started believing microstutter as a huge multi-GPU issue, when most people didn't even know what microstutter was! People started throwing graphs out there and videos claiming things were microstutter, when they clearly weren't. Heck, I even heard people on this very forum claim to have microstutter in a single GPU

Stutter, as per definition, means that something is not constant. So, its totally possible for a single gpu to have MS as long as the frames it outputs are not evenly distributed among time, causing effectively microstuttering.

The problem is that reviews tend to only focus on what happens from second to second without getting into it at all, and then we start with problems because I just don't wanna have a 20% more average frames if those aren't even, because the gaming perception will suffer, a lot.

I took my time to carefully read the entire Hardware Canucks review and I must congratulate them on one of the best reviews I have read as of yet. Everything is very clear and open and their methods were concerned to mimic real gaming as much as possible with their choice of using fraps on 3 run average instead of going lazy on timed demos which sometimes dont bring everything on the table.
Loved your review and loved these radeons, and I was especially shocked to see the massive improvement on MIN frame rate which ao many complained about with cypress. Also very impressed to see 6850 matching or beating gtx460 1gb accross the board.

thanks!

Yup, their reviews keep improving everytime a new product launches, to the point its one of the only webs I care to look at.

Keep it up.

[Mean Machine]

Memory overclocking is like... soo the next best thing after GPU.

And fan set to auto.....bro, you are a competitive overclocker, WTF!!!!

It was just for the review, it was meant for more normal people. If I was allowed to, I'd mount my pot on it right away, but I'm not allowed to for several reasons.

[Metroid]

finally the news section quieted down, now until the next hyped product, wait.... it is coming in a few days

[Monstru]

It was just for the review, it was meant for more normal people. If I was allowed to, I'd mount my pot on it right away, but I'm not allowed to for several reasons.

I know man, I'm just pulling your leg

[Eastcoasthandle]

DRIVER

I see...Ok than lets try Tom's which uses 260.89 WHQL.
BC2 8xAA
Dirt 2 8xAA
Seems to show the same story, 6870 offers better 8xAA performance when compared with the 470

[Macadamia]

Gee, thanks for the insight. Now, if you're so bored with the gpu release, why are you posting or even reading about it? Must not be too boring, or are you just trolling for responses?

well, have you seen any nVidia fangirl not trolling Radeon threads?

[DilTech]

6850 4% faster than gtx460 at average.
Most review sites used nvidia cheat them overclocked editions vs stock 6850.
6850 and 6870 is now the the new king of the hill at the 230 pricepoint.
Which is what most people buy for price/performance.

At least the small die give amd profit which they need when Nvidia bleeds big time with their die size as they now sell for a loss.

I've said it a million times...

Stock is stock. When you go to the store and buy a product, take it out of the box, install it, turn on your pc, install the driver... Whatever it runs at WITHOUT you tinkering with it is stock.

If companies choose not to make overclocked AMD cards, that's their fault(not AMD's, but the partners). It's practically easier to find overclocked NVidia cards than it is reference ones these days, and roughly the same price too. You almost have to go out of your way to buy a reference clocked(which is what the 675mhz gtx 460 is, REFERENCE clock, not STOCK...STOCK IS OUT THE BOX CLOCKS!) GTX 460 these days, and I guarantee if you find one at your local shop there's 3+ sittin next to it that run at 750mhz+.

Then again, I'm also all for AMD partners to start pumping out some high clocked versions of AMD's cards. Sadly, the few that do it play extremely conservative.

Considering you can walk into the store and buy one of those cards at those exact clocks without having to do anything different then buying any other card, they are fair for comparison...

(basically, if anyone here works for any of AMD's partners, tell your boss to start selling higher clocked AMD cards )

All this said, I don't quite know how I feel about this launch. The key point of calling this a new "generation" was suppose to be improved tessellation, and while it is better in that aspect than the 5870, it falls short when you turn up the heat on it(high tessellation levels) and still loses to the GTX 460 in this department.

Yes, it's nice that it does take less power(of course it does, it's a lot less shaders), but the number scheme really throws me off(why would you release a card numbered as a successor when it's technically slower?), and honestly I'm getting tired of seeing releases with similar performance numbers(even if it is cheaper).

I mean, people are acting like it's so amazing to see it happen, but we've seen it happen more times than I really care to remember. NVidia 6600GT was(for $200ish) equal to the 9800XT(which was the top-o-the-heap before it). 7600GT faster than the 6800ultra before it(which wasn't just a $500 video card, but was practically impossible to find). The 4850 was roughly equal to the 8800gtx(which launched at $649!!!), and finally the GTX 460 is roughly equal to the GTX 285 in performance. Am I the only one who remembers the Geforce Ti 4200 or Radeon 9500/9600? The 8800GT anyone?

Fast forward to now, where we see the trend stop. We see a "next generation" mid range that's named after last generations high-end and can't even match that generation? So, unlike almost every generation that I can remember in the last decade we see a new mid-range that trades blows with a last generation mid-range, and people are actually acting like this is a big deal? Then using the answer "oh, but it's on the same node, no die shrink!"... What does that have to do with you...The consumer? It wouldn't matter if it was 28nm or 110nm to the consumer(well, outside of power usage and heat...) if you wish to get technical.

I'm sure someone will call this biased, but if you truly think it through I know you'll see where I'm coming from on this. I'm trying to find the merit in this, I really am... I mean yes, it's nice they're doing it with less power usage(although, I can bet less than 10% of the people here can actually tell me how many watts their system uses), less die space, but these are things that they are sacrificing performance to succeed in, and at the same time doing so in a matter that will only lead to confuse customers who happen to be less tech savvy than us.

Basically, long story short, I'm not calling it a bad card... I just have higher expectations for a "next generation" part than this.

I see...Ok than lets try Tom's which uses 260.89 WHQL.
BC2 8xAA
Dirt 2 8xAA
Seems to show the same story, 6870 offers better 8xAA performance when compared with the 470

Isn't AMD cards faster in those two titles anyway, or is my memory just bad? I'm not trying to start an argument with you on that one, I'm just curious... Any other numbers from other titles?

[informal]

Basically, long story short, I'm not calling it a bad card... I just have higher expectations for a "next generation" part than this.

I think you got confused due to the names of the cards.I'm sure you are aware of this ,but let's recap : Barts is not the Cypress' successor,it's Juniper's successor.AMD chose the name in order to not endanger Juniper's sales(by naming it 6700).Cypress is slowly going away.
The card,based on Cayman XT, that will be a true(market segment) successor to Cypress is coming in a ~month or so.It will be a great performance uplift,on the same node. This thing will be fulfilling your high expectations,I'm sure.

[Dimitriman]

except all of the examples you mentioned above happened after a node transition.
this card is on schedule and on the same node as previous generation. and this after the entire 32nm fiasco that put the whole industry at a slower pace. processors included.
so yes i am very impressed by this launch.

[Macadamia]

[Periander6]

At least the small die give amd profit which they need when Nvidia bleeds big time with their die size as they now sell for a loss.

So bloody what? Why do people keep babbling about die sizes and profit margins? It's pure fanboi stupidity, rooting for the companies to make more money instead of buyers getting better deals. As consumers, we should only care about the price/performance we get. If the companies are in a price war, so much the better. Besides, Quadro is where Nv makes its money, and JHH ain't starving to death any time soon.

[Teemax]

The irony once again being nobody has come up with concrete examples that there isn't "famous driver issues".

I am a solid and concrete of the non-existence of ATI driver issue.

My last NVIDIA card was an 8800GTS. After that, it was a whole ATI streak, for the simple reason that you get more performance per $ out of ATI cards.

I've had an HD 4870, HD 4890, HD 5850 with fairly frequent driver update. And I'm still waiting "desperately" for a driver issue to rear its head.


Just to jog your memory, the last driver fiasco that I remember was NVIDIA's driver burning up cards from a faulty fan control code. Personally, I had my XPS 1530's motherboard burned from the overheated NVIDIA GPU a few months after warranty expiration. You seem to have a selective memory when it comes to GPU issues, driver or not


The "ATI driver issue" mantra is getting really old. Time to get a new theme, don't you think?

[N19h7m4r3]

What do people care about all this fanboy nonsense and who's the better company or who makes more profit.

We're consumers, and we should buy what's the best for our price range.

If you only have £199 to spend your best choice is a GTX 470 or 6870 now. So it depends on what games you play.

Why buy a 6870 is it's slightly better with 8xAA in only one of the games you play, when the 470 is slightly better in the vast majority.
Heat and power consumption isn't that big a deal to most people here, but sure it plays a part.

The same applies to drivers, I usually have a habit of Owning NV-AMD-NV-AMD. I found that both have odd driver problems and both companies fix them.

It all just comes back to what's best for YOU at YOUR price range. I don't see why people are making a big deal out of this.

[informal]

So bloody what? Why do people keep babbling about die sizes and profit margins? It's pure fanboi stupidity, rooting for the companies to make more money instead of buyers getting better deals. As consumers, we should only care about the price/performance we get. If the companies are in a price war, so much the better. Besides, Quadro is where Nv makes its money, and JHH ain't starving to death any time soon.

I agree.It all comes down to price/performance ratio and this is all end user should care about.Everything else (profit margins,costs etc.) should not be the concern of the customer but the concern of the companies that make the products.